Great Britain's Merchant Navy suffered proportionately the highest casualties of any of its branches of service in the Second World War. In this book, Peter Elphick tells the story of the Merchant Navy through a series of individual accounts. From countless interviews with survivors he has succeeded in portraying, in the most vivid manner possible, what it was really like to serve at sea in every theater of the war. This book redresses the balance in the history of the Second World War at sea, showing for the first time just what the sailors of the Merchant Navy had to face to keep Britain's lifeline open.